


Prometheus Revived

by DarthStrawberryShortcake (orphan_account)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Anakin is a Good Parent, Angst, Body Modification, But also not OOC, Crimes of Science, Darth Vader Lives, Drama, Dubious Ethics, Everyone Is An Asshole, Everyone Is Force-Sensitive (Star Wars), F/M, Family Drama, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Major Character Injury, Movie: Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Neediness, New Jedi Order, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Post-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Rule 63, Sci-Fi, Sith Holocron, kind of, slightly OOC, to a certain extent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/DarthStrawberryShortcake
Summary: Luke Skywalker saves his mother's life by building her a new body. FemVader/FemAnakin AU.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. Mana Du Vortes

**Author's Note:**

> There will be numerous content warnings in these notes, so please be mindful of them. You read this at your own discretion.  
> Also, I wanted to explain how I came up with the idea for this fic. I remembered the Force-healing scenes from TROS and the implications those had for those in the OT and PT. I hate the ST, by the way. Thinking about that while listening to the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack and talking with my Creepy Hollows purchases let me explore quite a few “what-ifs.” I know 3D printing isn’t to the stage it is in the fic.  
> Anakin is a woman in this because I am T-R-A-S-H for Rule 63’d main characters. I like characters like me. If you don’t like it, don’t read. I think the character makes way more sense as a woman. The terrible directions George Lucas gave Hayden Christiansen in the PT have nothing to do with that opinion. (Seriously. That wasn’t sarcasm.)  
> This is the first fic I’ve written in two years. You’ll see I’m rusty.  
> Please enjoy. My apologies for any mistakes I didn’t catch in the editing stage. I do not own Star Wars.  
> Also, to anyone who tries to plagiarize my fic, I am under the protection of Hecate and Santa Muerte. I don't know why you'd want to, but if you do, you're dealing with them.  
> -DarthStrawberryShortcake

**\---**

**Before the Soul Transplant; Two Weeks Before the “Awakening”**

**\---**

The creation of a human body via artificial and non-cloning related means had proven to be surprisingly simple. Once funding had changed hands and non-disclosure agreements on behalf of the scientists to the Rebellion (now on their way to becoming the dominant political entity in the galaxy) had been signed, the process was quickly underway. The hardest part was waiting for the organs to be constructed.

The successful recreation of Anakin Skywalker was dependent on five factors:

  1. _The retrieval of Darth Plagueis’s holocron._ Apart from the process he used to create Anakin in Shmi Skywalker’s womb, he documented the steps that successfully transferred his soul into other vessels. The holocron also included his hypothesis that this would be a way to save someone’s life if their body were still in decent condition. The should would be allowed to leave, and then it would be guided back into the body. 
  2. _The quick-thinking of Luke Skywalker._ He gave his mother no time to rest or speak during their escape from the Death Star. She was going to survive, and he used the Force to heal some of her alveoli to make the breakdown of the suit less fatal. He was not aware of those specifics, of course. 
  3. _Viable stem cells made from remnants of Darth Vader’s scarred body._ Given that Anakin’s former cyborg husk still bore its wisdom teeth, the team was able to extract their pulp to create induced pluripotent stem cells. They were fed into one of few organ printers in the hands of the Rebellion. Alderaan had been the major medical center of the galaxy, and most treatments for organ regeneration had happened there. It was their best hope, as Anakin was slipping fast despite Luke’s interference, and Kamino had yet to be raided by the Rebels.
  4. _The money of Princess Leia Organa._ Apart from funding the scientists and the rapid construction of the medical site in their chosen location, it was Leia who funded the search for documents relating to Anakin’s past life. Specifically, she found Clone War medical records and photographs that demonstrated what her mother looked like at the age of twenty-two. It was a miracle these were discovered, as Vader had most of them destroyed. The age was chosen because it was the most recent time her mother identified with her true self. It wouldn’t do for her soul to reject the body simply because she couldn’t identify with it. That was something Darth Plagueis stressed in the holocron.
  5. _The willingness of the ghost of Anakin to forego the afterlife to do whatever her son needed._



The final touches were being added as Luke readied himself for what came next. He had meditated and fasted for three days to be mentally and physically clean enough to perform the procedure. He watched as the dermatologist finished inserting donated hair grafts, most with their individual hairs still attached, into holes punctured in the epidermis of his mother’s new scalp. She resembled any member of the human species across the galaxy. The new body was still attached to life support, but that was going to change when the soul was placed. He wondered who was doing the more difficult work. He would have ruled on the side of the scientists, but now, with his mother’s fate in his hands, he wasn’t so sure.

They had come so far, and one mistake in transplanting the soul could cost everything. Everything about his mother’s new body had been regenerated or donated except…

\---

**The Awakening; The Present**

\---

“My eyes.”

She rolled the handle of the mirror between her hands. The eyes she was referring to stared at an area on the floor between the audience members to her awakening.

“My eyes,” she said again. Her voice was flat and monotone, like she was still unsure of her new capacity for controlling it. It was devoid of any joyful emotion and was reminisce of the robotic, synthesized voice she left behind. “Those are my eyes.”

She stopped rolling the mirror and instead took another look. Her facial expression remained the same as she processed more of the visual information in her reflection.

“You even got my cleft chin.” She ran the tip of her tongue along her Cupid’s bow. “And I have lips now. They’re a little bit bigger than I remember them.”

The young Jedi standing near her let out a breath he was not conscious of holding. The holocron had warned him of the potential side effects of tying a soul to a vessel that the soul could move. The difficulties in getting the soul to adjust to their new vessel were astronomical compared to the difficulties incurred with simply tying the soul to a portal in an inanimate object. There was always the risk of the soul becoming trapped in the vessel because they were unable to inhabit it as they had their original body. In which case, his mother would be alive but in a near comatose state, unable to do much for herself except perform autonomic functions. This was what she had been doing in her old body since the Death Star's destruction. She would have had to undergo euthanasia to release her soul. The fact that she was sitting up and talking coherently assuaged his fears.

She turned her head from side-to-side, enjoying the increased mobility and the ease at which bone vertebrates moved compared to cheap, mass-produced cybernetic enhancements. Left. Right. Left. Right. From there, she picked up the ends of her hair and ran them through her fingers. “My hair has never been this long or this healthy.”

“Do you want to try walking around?” Healer Yantha, the Togruta standing next to him, asked. Though she was doing her best to hide it, Luke could feel her excitement at watching her creation. It was certainly her greatest success. If it hadn’t been for the non-disclosure agreement, Healer Yantha would have become a household name when news broke. She, a Rebel princess, and a rogue Jedi had forced the soul of a galactic warlord into a body made from computer-generated tissue. Who wouldn’t want to know about that?

Anakin nodded. She lowered her feet onto the floor, pressing into the balls and heels a few times to be sure of the sturdiness of her legs. Her white medical gown fell from around her waist to her knees when she stood. It was this, combined with the dark circles that had permeated the skin they grafted and the unkempt hair from being on the medical table, that made Luke realize how closely his mother resembled the mental patients he’d seen on the _Redemption_. Those ready to be shipped out to institutions in the Outer Rim. Shell-shocked. Ridden with physical ailments. Oftentimes the victims of brutal torture. Her soul had resided in the body for two weeks. Yet she had taken on the image of the person she had been in her previous form. Healer Yantha had remarked the day before she was worried the skin was not fitting well enough around Anakin’s face. Deep down, Luke knew what was causing the sudden baggage to develop. It was why he outfitted the cell. Darth Plagueis said nothing about the baggage accumulated by a soul _not_ going with them to the new vessel. 

She took three small steps forward, situating herself between Healer Yantha and Luke. She then brought her feet together and observed her toes wriggling against the metal floor. They were unable to locate a picture of his mother with her legs showing, so they gave comparison shots of both his and his sister’s legs to the plastic surgeon. They created the limbs based on AI-captured commonalities and DNA data. They were positive they got their length and the size of her feet correct.

“Do you have a full-body mirror?” Anakin asked, this time more quietly but with hints of relief in her monotone voice.

Healer Yantha looked at a medical droid, which took that as its cue to wheel in a mirror as tall as Anakin. It was also here Luke realized how short his mother was compared to her cyborg self. She gave her body a once-over before putting her hands on her knees and bending forward, taken in by the ability. She rolled her left shoulder away from her ear, and then her right, and then the left again. Her joints were fine.

Standing straight, she lifted her gown to examine what resided beneath. Luke bit his lip and looked away. Anakin’s breathing became more hitched as she regarded herself.

“Is- Is there something wrong?” Healer Yantha asked, taken aback by the move Anakin made as much as Luke was.

“I’m missing a scar,” she replied. She released her grip on her gown, and the edge fell to her knees once more. “I’m missing all my scars, but everything else is present. I don’t know what I was expecting. Of course, it wasn’t going to be there. You can look at me now, Luke.” She turned to the healer. “I want to be alone with my son.”

Healer Yantha and Luke exchanged a glance.

“She won’t try anything,” he said. “We established that.”

“I wish I had some of your quick-thinking skills in my past life, kid,” Anakin said when the door closed behind Healer Yantha. She examined what she looked like from each side. Her gown twirled around her thighs with each turn. “Keeping me in limbo for this? You’re lucky your actions matched with the instructions in the holocron.”

“Do you like it?” he asked. Her body language and Force signature still showed no signs of positive emotion.

Her gaze was focused on her eyes again. Her right hand found its way onto the center of her chest, and her pointer finger tapped her collarbone in a rhythmic fashion. He realized she was counting each breath she took on her own. “It’ll work.”

 _That wasn’t a reply I was expecting,_ he thought. “I wish we could have gotten the body put together sooner.”

She waved her hand at him. “Don’t be. I never believed I would ever see the face I see staring back at me again.” She sighed. “How sensational.”

“Are you connected?” he asked. That was the important question he and his sister had been worried about. The midi-chlorian tests were promising, but it wouldn’t do for the results to contradict his mother’s abilities in her new body.

She nodded. “I’ve known your sister was watching me from the hidden window in the wall behind you ever since I woke up.” He felt a sense of surprise course through Leia. The mirror in front of Anakin began to roll back into its hiding place on its own, abandoned as quickly as it was summoned. “It’s nothing like when I was younger, but it’s better than what I had.”

 _Good!_ Leia said through their Force-link. _She’s proven it. Now, let’s get her into her room before she does something to someone._

_Hold on, Leia. She said she wanted a moment alone._

“You aren’t under arrest.” He could feel his sister’s Force signature moving. “I wanted to remind you. There’s very little paperwork linking you to this location, and even that is considered off-record. You know how your suit was disposed of. As far as the Rebels know, we’re both researching ways to help bring the Jedi back to guard the New Republic.”

The door opened, and Leia Organa walked into the room. Anakin’s jaw clenched when she acknowledged the identity of her daughter. She had denied any Force sensitivity the princess had when she was on the Death Star before the Battle of Yavin 4, labeling it a projection of her emotions regarding the capture of a Rebel leader. She repeated that to herself as many times as it took for herself to believe it.

“He’s right,” Leia began. “We’ve kept this a secret. And to elaborate on that, you _are_ in our capture, but you are not under arrest by any civil authority. The only conversations raging about you across the galaxy are conspiracy theory-related.”

“I can tell you where all of the secret bases and weapons facilities are.” Anakin seemed more guarded with Leia in front of her. She was already guarded. The memory of their most prominent encounter had been brought to the forefront of her mind. Anything she wanted to say to Luke was tossed aside. Leia’s cries from encountering the torture droid had been the only ones to resonate with her, and yet, she had not withdrawn the droid. Pity.

“Good. Luke, make a list and take the woman to her living quarters. She’s done here.”

\---

**Five Months Earlier**

\---

While the remnants of the Rebel squadron deployed on the forest moon of Endor, including Han and Chewie, were busy partying with the Ewoks and making a mess of Imperial supplies, the Skywalker twins were staring dumbstruck at an armor-clad figure gasping for air. Luke begged his mother through their meager Force link to stay alive as he started up the Emperor's private shuttle. As he drove out of the burning space station, he ruminated on whether he had done the right thing by asking that of her. A moment of his weakness- his naivety, no doubt. 

“She survived that?” Leia couldn’t bring her focus away from her mother’s pale face. What could have happened to leave a human being that scarred she didn’t want to think about. She had been in numerous battles where she had sustained injuries that generated scar tissue. But this was… different. “It’s hard to believe someone could live behind that mask for so long.”

“I really wouldn’t call it living,” Luke quipped. “And just barely. Her signature was almost non-existent. I was worried she would just disappear like both of my masters.”

Leia scratched the back of her neck. “So, if I’m hearing this correctly, our mother is now enemy number one of both the Rebel Alliance and the Empire?”

“Hm.” He adjusted the collar on his robe. He decided against closing the flap that had fallen open during his Death Star battle. “If word gets out that she’s still alive. I don’t have any doubts that that may happen. I don’t know where else the security footage was sent and stored. I imagine there’s a database somewhere with everything that happened. But even if they could turn it into propaganda against the Rebels, it’s not like people are interested in hearing it. Not with the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor.” He sighed. “I guess one way to bring balance and order between two groups is to be hated by both. Gives them something to agree on.”

"There could be trackers in the suit." Leia focused on the control panel in the middle of her mother's chest. Her back grew rigid at the thought of what else may be hidden in that outfitted contraption. "Knowing the Emperor, he would have wanted to keep track of his pet. We've got to get it off, and we've got to get it off fast."

Luke propped his elbow up on the edge of the window and ran his thumb along his brow. "I know. I have no idea how we're going to do that." 

“I know one thing: she’s not as scary when she’s unmasked,” Leia remarked. “She’s not as imposing. Just vulnerable. Is she considered a prisoner of ours?”

“Depends on the person you ask.” He watched as his mother tried to turn her head. She had been slipping in-and-out of consciousness for hours. “To the Rebels, sure. But to the Empire? She’s the worst defector in their history.”

She scoffed. “A defector? A military defector? Is that what we’re calling _that?”_ She pointed into the medical room.

“Do not talk about our mother that way. Considering the circumstances, yes. She killed the Emperor and saved my life. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

She looked down at her shoes. Dirt from the forest floor had made her once shiny boots dusty. “She’s far from being totally redeemed.”

“I never implied she was," Luke said. “Don't put words in my mouth. She isn’t the same person who tortured you and Han.” 

“But she hasn’t proven that.” Anakin stirred slightly on the table, causing Leia to look back up at her. "Maybe to you, but not to me." 

“She told me after she killed the Emperor that I was right. I was right about her. There was good in her. There is good in her. Do you doubt me?”

She looked her brother in the eyes. “It’s not you I doubt. It’s the sorry excuse for a droid.” Even that sounded cruel in Leia's ears, but she had to be honest about the person she and her brother were discussing. 

“Quit talking about our mother like that!” He clenched his eyes shut. “Look, we can argue about this later. Right now, we need to get her out of that thing.”

“Why are you bothering to save her, anyway?” She genuinely wanted to know. From his hand, to claiming ownership of his soul due to their blood relations, to her killing of his old Jedi master, Luke didn’t have many reasons to stand up for the woman. This was true regardless of her being his mother. “What good is this going to bring you? Or her?"

\---

**The Present, Only Later**

\---

She wasn’t exactly sure which planet they had taken her to. Perhaps she had been cognizant of where the medical facility was while she was still a spirit walking the fine line between the here and the beyond, but she had forgotten. A good portion of her time as a spirit was being blocked by her new brain. The passage to the room they assigned her brought her by no windows. The place felt like it had undergone an exorcism of some kind; she once heard stories of Jedi Masters being called to do that for citizens plagued by demonic entities. She could tell she wasn’t on a ship. The whirring of the engine, usually heard subtly throughout, wasn’t present in the areas she had been to. Her connection to the Force in this room was weaker, but it was not totally depleted. The room had to have been custom-built for housing her if her “resurrection” had been successful.

At least, in the moments she thought were the last of her mortal life, she felt like she had been set free from her chains. First, it had been being a slave to Watto. Then, it was dealing with the dogma of the Jedi Order while juggling her obligations in the Clone Wars. And before she “died,” it was being the lackey of Palpatine and the secret laughing-stock- the wheezing court jester who never cracked a joke- of the upper echelons of the Empire. Although, she did feel the latter was deserved. She was captured, and she was guarded. Her son had escorted her from the medicinal bay in handcuffs and with his prosthetic hand tight around her arm.

It was the nicest cell she had been in. The bed was minimalist in design, but the sheets and pillows were soft. A quick push on the mattress revealed it to be Scarifian memory foam. She owned such a bed in her home on Mustafar, but she never slept in it. The mask made reclining nearly impossible. It was a purchase she made because she had the funds, and the mattress was readily available to her. A bench of a similar color was situated nearby. A panel on the wall allowed her to control the temperature and the lighting in the room, as well as play music through two speakers hidden somewhere near the bed’s headboard. There was no connection to the HoloNet, however. Both the bed and the bench were bolted down. The door to the en-suite refresher was in front of the bed. She wondered if the twins had put this together themselves to avoid the risk of construction crews discovering their operation. 

They gave her a white shirt with matching trousers to change into, since she told them she wasn’t fond of the gown. There was yet another mirror in the room, and she could look at her new body more closely. The reflection was unaltered by the thick layer of sonic-proof glass in front of it. She didn’t pay as much attention to the details of her form as she should have in the hospital. Restored movement had been what captivated her there. Her body was supposed to resemble a twenty-two-year-old’s, and in many respects it did. It was the eyes-always the eyes-that caught her off-guard. They were her old eyes but with new corneas. Attached to the new body, they seemed cloudy, strained, and ancient.

Old wine put into new wine skins. That was a parable she remembered from her time in the Order. She remembered remarking to the Jedi Master that told her that parable why the Order bothered to keep telling it. _No one uses wine skins anymore,_ she said. 

It was a privilege just to run one hand over one of her arms and feel human skin as opposed to cold metal. It was a privilege to watch the tiny hairs change direction across her skin with each swipe. It reminded her of the grasslands on Naboo Padmé adored so much. She enjoyed it despite the sense of being undeserving choking her and making her chest feel too heavy to lift. That sensation wasn’t anything new. It was pathetic.

_Mother, please don’t do this. I can save you. You don’t have to die._

Okay. She wouldn’t. And she didn't.

_Mother, I’m going to find a way for you to be comfortable. I’ll set you free._

Okay. She warned him not to get too attached to her and drive himself over the edge.

_Mother, I’m working on a way to save you. My sister is, too. We found the holocron. Just have a little more patience with me._

Okay. She trusted him. It took a lot for her to remain in a place he could reach her. The Force beckoned her to join it. It was a good thing she had spent some time in her original body being defiant of authoritative voices. It was also a good thing she was the Force's chosen. It let her get away with a tiny bit more. 

_Mother, we have something for you. Just sit tight, and I’ll guide you to your new body._

Okay.

This was what she got in return. The best gift she had ever been given gave her the second. She was still upset about that scar, though. She thought it ugly in her previous form. She had a feeling her son would ask about it at some point, if he couldn’t deduce what it was. Even still, he’d be unable to figure out why it was so sentimental to her, outside of the usual reasons. The crescent moon was a reminder of the one natural and good thing she did in her life.

This was all very unnatural.

Her lips trembled, and she observed the world becoming triangularly fragmented from her tears. She was a chronic user of eye drops when she was Darth Vader. Her tear ducts had melted away on Mustafar, and even if she could cry, she couldn’t do so unless her mask had been removed. By the time she went from the scene of whatever brought up a traumatic memory to her meditation pod, she usually had beaten back any emotions that threatened to spill forth. If she hadn’t, her cries were almost inaudible due to the condition of her larynx. Someone who came upon her would have assumed she was having issues with her respirator. More attention would be directed her way.

She pressed a finger to her tear duct and watched the resulting tear drop fall down her hand. It got smaller as it left parts of itself behind. “Everything works.”

\---

\---

Healer Yantha stood on the balcony overlooking the lava river flowing in front of Fortress Vader. Lava poured from cracks in the surface the way blood oozes from non-cauterized wounds on a battlefield. All these tiny, sporadic cracks joined the monstrosity flowing before her. Mining droids skated across its bubbling surface, unimpeded by the heat and the brightness. 

_Such a_ _dreadful place to live,_ she thought. Yantha had been standing there for five minutes, but the heat singed her skin, making it feel pricked and puffy. Her robes now needed to be washed of soot and sweat. She went to the planet once as a Padawan, and she made a vow to never return unless a return was unavoidable. Technically, she came back to Mustafar under her new identity, adopted for her own protection.

She became a healer for the Rebel Alliance after she survived her encounter with Vader on Malachor. The gig was up on Fulcrum. Mon Mothma and Ahsoka knew this. Desperate to do more, and with the knowledge of hiding her Force signature she gained before Order 66 was issued, she completed the studies she began at the Jedi Temple’s Academy at the Rebel base on Yavin 4. Just as she learned battle strategy in the Clone Wars, she learned medicine by pouring over wounds, building on the textbook biology knowledge of the Jedi. 

She hadn’t recognized her. Ahsoka had given her all to this assignment, regardless of the implications, and she hadn't recognized her. Certainly, her facial markings had not changed that much over the course of two decades. Certainly, she could remember the more mature voice she used when they encountered each other on Malachor. Certainly, the remnants of their previous Force bond became activated when she was nearby. Her shields were not that strong. They were weak compared to what Anakin had cracked in the past. No matter. Anakin was dealing with being alive in a non-augmented human body again. She imagined the tension she felt in the princess was going to come to a ferociously ugly head in the coming days. Whether the destruction of the remaining Imperial hideouts would be enough to reduce the fallout was a hazy point in the Force. The bitterness that rolled off Leia Organa when her mother first sat up in the hospital was strong enough to make Ahsoka nauseous.

Her pager buzzed. Luke Skywalker was asking her back to her post. She took one last look at the molten, depressing landscape and went back inside the castle.


	2. Reunited (Spirits Rising and Falling)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. It's even worse than the last one. Whatever. I write for myself and the few people who have similar tastes to myself. 
> 
> Content warnings: There are mentions of major surgery in this chapter, and Anakin may or may not casually commit a war crime in front of a wounded Ahsoka. Hey. I do whatever I've got to do for canon continuity. 
> 
> Also, yes. I made Ahsoka a doctor in this because I love her, and she deserves the best the galaxy has to offer. I decided to add in Artoo and Rex, because why not? 
> 
> Just remember this isn't beta'd. I went back in and edited some inconsistencies.

\---

**Three Days After the Battle on the Forest Moon of Endor**

\---

She had to admit it: Skygirl’s body had been tarnished by the Emperor. How she incurred so much flesh damage she didn’t want to know. What was perplexing was how long she had survived with botched cybernetic enhancements.

The Rebellion’s medical droids were needed for the wounded in the battles following the downfall of the Emperor and the reinstating of the democratic Senate. It was decided that, due to the sensitivity of the patient, non-droid medical personnel would have to suffice. After the room and the surface of the suit had been sterilized, the first thing she did was cut away the fabric covering the remaining skin. The boots, gloves, and cape were removed prior to the sterilization procedure. Her scissors only allowed her to peel back one layer of cloth at a time. Ahsoka didn’t opt for the back zipper out of concern for what else would have to be removed for the fabric to be removed. It wouldn’t do for her to rearrange the order of the best procedure in the name of convenience. She and her assistant were a half hour into the operation by the time they had pealed back the first nine layers of suit padding. A container lined with medical-grade plastic-tech had a mountain of fabric in varying shades of black and grey emerging from its mouth. The more she peeled back the more it became obvious to her the line the suit walked between being pioneering medical ingenuity and lower-level, back-alley, Coruscanti criminal medicine.

Now, she was ready to peel back the final layer. The temperature sensor layer, as she understood it.

Ahsoka cringed as she revealed the hundreds of needles embedded in her former master’s back and torso. The resulting holes, long healed and toughened, resembled distant, psychotic stars emerging from the sea of primordial soup that caused the waves of barely healed flesh rippling across Anakin’s body. She handed pieces of this layer to her assistant, who was removing the needles from the fabric before adding it to the pile. The discarded needles were thrown into a container for metal, biohazardous waste next to their repository of scalpels and scissors. The one tracker embedded among the needles was disabled and separated for intel gathering. The lack of input from the needles caused the chest computer to hiss and screech, and in a bid to get to stop without shutting down the suit, she consulted the Force.

 _I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me,_ Ahsoka repeated to herself. _And may the Force guide my hand._

_If it is the will of the Force, my master will be returned to us. If not, may she slip in peace into Eternity._

With some help from the resulting inner guidance, Ahsoka pressed one of the red buttons on the console, and the noise ceased.

She looked up at her assistant. The disposal of the final layer of fabric was complete.

“We’re going to have to be fast about this,” she said. “The scan revealed two additional trackers inside the body. One on the circulatory implant. The other in the helmet. Luke’s Force healing healed the alveoli, but if we want to keep her alive and out of the Empire’s hands, they’ve got to be removed.”

“I remember our briefing, Healer Yantha,” the assistant replied, smirking beneath her medical mask. She knew Ahsoka didn’t say that for her benefit. “I’ll have the oxygen mask ready.”

“Right.” Ahsoka detached the back helmet and the face mask. The face that greeted her was paler than an egg, but despite the scars and the wrinkles, she would be damned if she said she didn’t recognize the face that greeted her. Skygirl still resembled herself. It was curious- the quality of the plastic surgery compared to the quality of some of suit's equipment. 

**_A herculean effort was required to lift her head. She noticed she was covered in bandages that had lost their starched, white luster. Now, having sat on her charred skin for some time, they resembled red and yellow camouflage wrappings. Her throat was chapped, and if she hadn't remembered the past few hours, she would have imagined herself back on Tatooine and the victim of a sandstorm._**

“Healer Yantha.”

**_A hooded figure appeared in her vision. The noxious fumes on the edge of the river had damaged her eyesight as much as the fire had damaged her ears. The yellow eyes and the ridges in his forehead shone through the hazy veil that had fallen over her vision since she had been burned. Lord Sidious spoke to her, and after he got no response from her, she felt his dark tendrils pick and prod at her mental shields until she relented._ **

“Healer Yantha.”

**_“Remember, Lord Vader, I have ways of keeping you alive until this is over.”_ **

“Healer Yantha!”

Ahsoka was standing in the operating room. Her assistant had already placed the new oxygen mask over Anakin’s face. Two blue face shields were placed over her eyes to protect them from the harsh lighting of the operating room. She observed a bead of sweat emerge from beneath her cap, course down her cheek, and disappear beneath her mask in her reflection on the helmet. “My apologies.” She examined the underside of the helmet and detached the tracker embedded above where Anakin’s nape would have rested. “That’s that one.”

“We’re in prime position to begin working on the circulatory implant,” her assistant said.

\---

\---

If pressed, Leia doubted she could give a direct answer to why she elected to watch the operation. She would probably say she wanted to be sure the trackers were properly removed. Or perhaps she wanted to be sure her captive remained alive so she could extract more of the Empire’s secrets from her. Or, even still, perhaps she could say she was worried about the state of the armor and what intel could be gathered from it. She was a politician. She knew how to skirt around her true reasons, even in response to her own rumination.

She was also not a person who was comfortable in medical settings. When her father Bail had stones removed from his kidneys when she was ten years old, she had been frightened of the IV drip attached to his hand. Her mother Breha held her by the shoulders to keep her from running out of the hospital room. When she later came to lead part of the Rebellion, her father would bring up that incident to tease her. “You have no fear in the face of the Emperor. But you flounder at the sight of one of your parents in a bed?”

Of course, this was before Alderaan was destroyed.

Seeing Luke in the bacta tank on Hoth had destroyed her. She had been lucky Han didn’t require the same treatment Luke did. When she was allowed to see him, she lost her self-control and kissed him, hoping she was close enough to him no one could notice her tears. In hindsight, that wasn’t the right choice for her to show her affection…

Perhaps she thought she would get a sense of satisfaction out of watching the man- _woman_ that terrorized innocent people and those she loved suffer. Perhaps the only room properly outfitted to deal with Vader had a theater space (the hallway) for a reason. Perhaps the swiftness at which the operation had to begin correlated with that theater window being left open, too.

But when Yantha cut into the black, quilted fabric around the chest console, and Leia observed more of her mother’s scarred flesh and the wires protruding thereof, that sentiment dissolved. The familiar anxiety-inducing repulsion of medical contexts returned. No. She wouldn’t get any satisfaction out of watching the suit’s removal.

She wanted to walk away long before Ahsoka began to work on removing the circulatory implant.

“After all this time, I still can’t believe that’s me.”

She whipped around to find the source of the voice, the back of her neck growing hot from the sudden goosebumps. Leia was surprised at how much Luke resembled the ghost standing next to her. At least, she figured the transparent, blue woman was a ghost. She had never been one to engage with the paranormal. She couldn’t have been taller than six feet, and if Leia had been wearing heels, she would have been able to rest her head on the woman's shoulder. Her hair fell in waves around her chin, which, along with her cheekbones, jutted forward like cliffs over a canyon, creating deep shadows on the lower parts of her cheeks and neck. Her bottom lip was more pronounced than the top, giving her a perpetual pout. While she was not angelic by any means, she possessed a feminine aura that was more fortified than demure in nature. She was pretty. On her body she wore a robe like the one she'd seen Ben Kenobi wear. 

“Make no mistake about it.” She turned to her and smiled. Leia had never seen a smile so perversely melancholic before. The smile was large enough to reveal the woman's dimples, but her eyes remained pools of clouded, indistinguishable negativity. The smile ended on the horizon between her discolored under eyes and the rest of her face. “That’s me. My actions are mine alone. And anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know kriff-all about anything. Isn’t that right?” Her smile fell. “So you're the Rebel Leader Luke clued in on this operation. Tell me. Are you enjoying the show?”

“No,” Leia answered. She felt disgusting for thinking she would. “It’s not any more enjoyable for me as it is for you.”

“You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

"Well, I'm not enjoying it." She came off curter than she was intending to. The ghost didn't respond to it, but rather, it seemed to Leia she failed to register the nature of her reply, seeing as it had yet to evoke a measurable reaction from the ghost. 

Yantha cried out inside the operating room. She and her assistant briefly looked up at the monitors, which were flashing between red and blue while giving what Leia knew were dismal readings. The heartbeat that was playing over the area's intercom system had ceased. 

“It’s that damned implant.” The ghost copped that smile again, which Leia was starting to detest. “They could’ve gotten me out of that suit earlier if they hadn’t installed that originally. The question is what they would have put in its place. My human one wouldn’t work. Of course, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

“You should get back in there,” Leia said. She wasn’t sure if that was bait or rhetorical, but regardless, she wasn’t in the place to answer that question. The uncanny resemblance the woman bore to Luke was captivating. She concluded she at least had the woman’s nose. “You’re making Healer Yantha upset.”

“I think you’re right.” She turned back to the operating room. “I’d better try to squeeze back in before I get cut off for good.”

She observed Yantha’s shoulders drop from the tensed position they had retreated to when the monitors went off, and her hands emerged from Anakin’s chest with the circulatory implant. A fellow surgeon handed her the new, temporary circulatory implant that was going to keep the cyborg body alive until they could come up with a plan to save Anakin. The ghost vanished, and the steady beat of Anakin’s heart was restored to the intercom in the operating room and the hallway where Leia was standing.

Leia observed Yantha’s jaw loosen underneath her surgical mask. She closed her eyes and drew in a breath before setting about working on closing the chest. The assistant had deactivated the third tracker, and it joined the other two on their designated medical tray. With newfound strength, Leia turned on her heels and half-walked, half-jogged away from the window. 

\---

**The Clone Wars**

\---

“Master Skywalker!”

Ahsoka was crouching behind an overturned gunner. In one hand she held her lightsaber, still ignited, and the other was clasped around a wound in her arm. The droid that shot her was a lump of scrap nearby, a hole in its chest a sign of the shot Ahsoka deflected after one connected with her. The fifteen-year-old’s eyes were wide from shock. That was the only sign she was losing any sort of composure.

“I’ll be right there!” she called. She deflected two shots with her lightsaber. “Rex! Come take over this side! I’ve got to get to Ahsoka!”

“Yes ma’am!” Rex landed two shots in the droids keeping Anakin occupied on the left flank. Seizing the opportunity, Anakin dashed across the street and crouched onto the ground next to her Padawan.

“I don’t know what happened, Master. I- “

Anakin shushed her. “It’s okay.” She manipulated the Force to send a feeling of calm over Ahsoka, which wasn’t easy to do in the middle of a battlefield with screaming clones and mortars. A shuddering of metal just beyond the gunner told her that one of the Octuptarras had been taken down. Ahsoka's eyelids lowered back into their normal position. “Let me see it.”

Ahsoka turned off her lightsaber and removed her hand. That hand was dyed red from the blood dripping from the wound. Part of the wound had been cauterized, but the middle and the top of the wound were still leaking blood. It hit her arm at an angle, forcing some of the pressure on the skin towards her elbow.

“All we need to do is get this bandaged up and take you to a field hospital,” Anakin reassured her. “I’m going to stop the bleeding as best as I can. I don’t think I’ll be able to Force heal you in the middle of this chaos. Never was good at it.”

She ripped a piece of fabric from the corner of her Jedi robe, making sure it was still clean. She was not about to cause Ahsoka more pain by wrapping her open wound in dirty fabric. A blaster shot was easily fixed. Sepsis? Not so much. “This will have to do.”

“I’m sorry, Master.” Ahsoka said. “I should have been more careful.”

“Don’t be sorry, Snips. This is war. Stuff like this happens. I’m sure you were doing what I would have wanted you to. Just think- one day, you may have to do something like this for me.” She secured the makeshift bandage with a double knot.

Ahsoka winced as her master tightened the bandage. “You, Skygirl? I don’t think so!”

“General Skywalker!” Rex interjected. He fired off three rounds before continuing. “The Separatists are retreating!”

Anakin looked over the top of the overturned gunner. Rex was right. The droids were still firing on the Republic’s forces, but the bulk of them were moving backwards behind the AAT tanks the Separatists had bothered to bring to the city. The AATs were turning in the opposite direction. Clearly, the occupation wasn’t worth the continued effort. Even if reinforcements were on the way, the Republic would be able to outfit the city in the event of a counterattack. Furthermore, she could set up the perimeter to fake the Republic’s vacancy, and as the droids returned from below the city, attack them as they tried to make it up the road. She and her Padawan could be back at the Temple by the end of the week if the deception worked.

“Good. Keep applying pressure!” she barked. “When they’re beyond the horizon, take these defunct gunners and the empty containers and litter them around the perimeter. I want them thinking they weakened us despite their retreat, and I want an ambush plan in place. We'll take them all back before we leave.” Anakin turned back to Ahsoka, a jovial expression on her face both from the upcoming victory and the necessity of being a comforting presence to her Padawan. It was here she noticed how much of Ahsoka’s blood had painted the side of the gunner. “Let’s get you checked out, yeah?”

She took Ahsoka’s uninjured arm and slung it over her shoulder. The young Togruta held her injured arm close to her torso, her lightsaber resting against her stomach. Anakin pushed into her legs and guided Ahsoka into standing. 

“Easy steps, Snips. Easy steps.”

\---

**The Present**

\---

Anakin’s musings with her reflection were interrupted by a series of knocks on the door to her cell. She had just taken a shower in the refresher. It was the first time her new body had been properly bathed as opposed to just wiped down. The residue from electrodes, medical tape, and sweat was not pleasing to live with. The sudden sensitivity to things touching her skin only made the feeling of being dirty more insufferable. The soap they provided left her smelling like musk roses, and it was the first time in her memory she smelled like something other than clean linen and polished leather. The knocking came again.

“May I come in?”

She knew that voice. “Yeah.”

The first thing she noticed about Luke as he entered the room was the open flap on his robe, revealing his white undershirt. It had fallen open in a similar fashion during their match on the Death Star, and while the look it created was unkempt, Anakin had to agree it suited her son. With her own eyes, she could see how much he resembled her. A quick look at the mirror confirmed her comparison of each other as male/female foils.

“I was wondering if you were hungry,” he began. “Leia- my sister has taken all the locations you gave us to the Rebel leaders. They think we meditated with the Force to find them. I was told you didn’t eat. In your old body, I mean.”

“You would be right about that.” Anakin wondered how much of her medical history had been divulged to him. Her time as a spirit continued to elude her, and standing in front of Luke, the only thing she could remember was his plea for her to stay alive as they flew from the second Death Star. "I could eat."

“Great.” She took note of the enthusiasm in his voice. “It would have been awkward if you said you weren’t. I had dinner made for everyone. You don’t mind eating in here, do you?”

Observing him, she noticed how much of his stance and his polite mannerisms, the way he spoke to her so diplomatic-like as if presenting her with an option they both knew didn’t exist, resembled his father’s. She couldn’t recall a time in which she talked to a captive in such a decent manner, as if they were a friend from the past she happened to run into on the street. Her focus was intel. Intel saved lives. Intel took lives.

“No. That’s alright.” She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. You’ll be eating in here, too.”

He smiled, blowing a puff of air through his nose. “It would be better than eating alone.”

It was an odd sensation, watching the boy who threw his lightsaber into a seemingly bottomless pit in front of the most powerful man in the galaxy reduced to an enthusiastic school child. An enthusiastic school child in the form of a young adult in need of a haircut, that is. 

Luke took her silence for the answer of allowance it was and whistled in the direction of the door. A blue and silver R2 unit rolled into the room. A warm, flowering sensation broke through the indignant indifference that had settled in her chest, but despite recognizing Artoo, she made no outward change to her countenance. A quick consultation with her inner voice told her Artoo recognized her, too. He also said nothing but allowed Luke to take the folded table and food trays from his harnesses. Not even a beep in her direction. Figures.

“That’s Artoo,” Luke said. The droid in question rolled out of the room. The only sound that permeated the tense silence was the sound of his rollers connecting with the floor. She was leading a quiet existence without the respirator. “We had some corners to cut, so he’s working for us as a carrier at the moment.”

“I’m sure he’s amazing.” Anakin looked over the food Luke had made. It was standard cafeteria fare: Stewjon peas, Nubiann potatoes, and some mystery meat. But to someone who had subsisted off IVs for the past two decades, it looked delectable. The door shut behind Artoo.

“Let me set this up,” he said when she moved forward to help him set up the table. The table, when opened, resembled the caf tables Master Yoda used to serve tea on in his confessional. “Hope you don’t mind sitting on the couch to eat.”

“That’s fine.” She nestled into the cushion closest to the bed.

Luke placed one of the trays in front of her before grabbing his own and taking a seat next to her. The force at which he sat down jolted her into sitting up straighter. Now that she was Anakin again, the standard Anakin slouch Kenobi chided her for was returning. 

“You’ll have to forgive me for being so brash,” he said. “I’ve wanted to sit down and have a meal with my real family ever since I was a young boy.”

A blaster shot to the shin would have hurt less. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s no use being sorry.” Luke stabbed a piece of meat he cut from his fillet with his fork. “You’re here now. I was so worried our plan wasn’t going to work.”

Anakin placed a fork’s worth of mashed potatoes in her mouth. Her eyes lost focus not from the amount of butter and pepper stirred into them, but from the sensation of feeling food against her teeth and cheeks. The food was _warm._

“You know,” she said. “They couldn’t print organs when I was put in the suit.”

“I figured,” her son replied. He picked up his water glass and drew circles in the air with the bottom rim, watching the liquid and the ice swirl in the same direction. Another habit of his father’s. He took a sip. “Was that the suit the best they could give you?”

“No.” Anakin fiddled with some of the peas on her plate with her fork. “We were over-reliant on bacta and robot parts, I guess. Why bother with a printed organ when a computerized organ can perform its designated function and more?” She sighed. “We were in a war. The ease of use and cost of installation trumped everything. I had no choice but to take advantage of the rising cybernetics industry. They settled for less than useful enhancements since my impeding death put them on a time crunch. Cloning was out of the question. It was ruled to be too dangerous to risk inserting cloned lungs in the place of my old ones. I've never been able to figure out if that was true.” She placed the utensil on top of her napkin and reclined back on the sofa. “That was, until you healed them from the inside.”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Luke said. “The printers the Rebellion have were originally from Alderaan, which received funding from the Empire on multiple occasions for their construction. That’s what my sister told me. Why didn’t you use them? At least for the organs that could be replaced?”

“Luke, use the brain your father gave you.” The memory of the discovery of the printers caused her stomach to contract and expand, and saliva pooled into her mouth. “Who do you think funded those printers in the first place? I would have been able to use them had the Emperor not found out about the project. They were nearly completed when some lowly Imperial accountant going over the military expense report wanted to audit the military medicine program on Alderaan. This happened when the Rebellion became the forefront of Imperial military operations. The Emperor gave me another medal for my contributions to the Imperial navy. In front of the Imperial leaders. They all knew what I had tried to do.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Never was one for fool-proof plans.”

“I see.” Luke looked down at his plate. He too set down his utensil. “I’ve always wondered. Was it uncomfortable?”

“Yes.” She studied the potatoes, contemplating taking another bite. “It was always uncomfortable. And heavy. I had to have my bones replaced to be able to stand up. The installed the wrong prosthetic limbs thanks to the time crunch. I was given male augmented limbs as opposed to female. I had to have numerous knee and shoulder replacements before they gave in and put in metal joints. They got stuck mid-rotation often. Normal sleep was out of the question with the respirator.”

“So, it wasn’t your choice to appear androgynous?” her son asked.

“No.” She contemplated if the water would be enough to abate her nausea. “That was the Emperor’s idea. He wanted to squash anything that would be indicative of the person I used to be. My identity was to be stripped from me and molded in a way that made me his greatest terror weapon.” A bead of condensation fell from near the rim of her water glass, paved a streak down the glass’s side, and gathered itself into a spot on the table. “I guess there was an air of mystery he was trying to preserve. The unknown is something people already fear. Add a reputation and a modulated voice to that, and you’ve got yourself an obedience tool.”

“Did you ever regret making the switch over?” Luke rested his elbow on his knee, propping his head on his hand, and observed her. “Leaving the Jedi. Master Obi-Wan said you were consumed by the person you became.”

“He was right about that,” she said. “I was. And yes. I did regret it.”

“He never told me anything about that, either. He only told me you destroyed the person you used to be. Why did you leave? Why did you even bother with the Emperor?”

She needed to figure out a way to answer his question without the answer sounding pitiable. The real answer was pitiable, but she desired a way to say the truth aloud that didn’t compromise any dignity she had managed to procure in the last few hours of being alive again. “I did it for your father.” No, that wasn’t it. “I told myself I did it for your father. But even that connects back to me. I really did it for myself. Even if the Order was corrupt, I dealt with it in a way that consolidated its fractured pieces under myself. I know you've idolized the old Jedi Order, but I think you'd feel differently if you knew what the Order habitually did.”

Luke sat in silence. His posture and his neutral expression didn’t change. “I see.”

The mashed potatoes no longer looked menacing, but they weren’t appetizing, either. They resembled an obstacle she had to get through in order to avoid offending her son. The nausea went away by taking her focus off her memories. “Can I just eat and let you ask questions later?” She picked up her fork. The Stewjon peas and the meat slab wouldn’t pass down her throat. She knew that. She could at least tackle the potatoes.

“Right. Sorry.” Luke sat up straight and picked up his fork. “Too much too soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anyone gets on me for continuity issues, remember, Anakin/Vader doesn't remember much from her time as a spirit. She also doesn't recognize Leia as her daughter during the surgery. 
> 
> And yes, deliberate environmental destruction, even for the sake of deception, is pretty much a war crime.
> 
> I'm trying to keep the scenes short to avoid dragging them out. If you notice my Aspie eye-skips anywhere, let me know.


	3. Reunited (Spirits Rising and Falling) Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. The second chapter garnered the same amount of views as the first. I must be doing something right. And they said sci-fi fans hate Rule 63. 
> 
> Again, my apologies if I missed any mistakes in my editing stage. I'm probably going to regret this fic later in life, but for right now, it's a stable part in my life. I make phonetically-based lexical errors often when I'm in burnout, so you've been warned. 
> 
> Oh, and I use "links" and "bonds" interchangeably. 
> 
> Content Warnings: There are more descriptions of general surgery, angst, and a PTSD episode. Also, the twins are born in this chapter. I also wanted this chapter to be a bit longer to give you all something to dissect.

\---

**The Present, in Vader’s Former Bedroom**

\---

She was here for intel. As usual. Anything that would help the Rebellion. Anything that helped her personally was a residual benefit. She had not tried to come in here while Ahsoka (Yantha) and Luke were occupied with the body’s construction. Even though it was a lengthy and involved process, Leia had positioned her schedule to be occupied with both the reconstruction and remaining Rebel invasions. Her loyalty dictated she search the room while everyone else was unaware.

The carpet where the meditation pod had resided was still compressed, forming a canyon in the floor in the corner of the room. The pod Leia and her brother had taken apart to outfit the cell. Some property it had could be used to restrict their mother’s Force connection, or so Luke said. The hue the canyon had taken was the same as the non-altered carpet, showing the conscientiousness of the housekeeper. Along the far wall, situated in front of the HoloNet projection screen was an ornate, black bed frame. The headboard was made from wood along with crushed velvet. The mattress that the two beasts jutting from the headboard’s carvings watched over had been taken for the cell. Now, the beasts resided over an empty, shadow-stricken floor. The other furnishings were sparse. There was no dresser, as there was no need for one. There was no vanity, either. There wasn’t so much as a drop of color in anything other than the green light emitted from the power button on the projector.

A chill ran down her spine as she shut the door behind her. The hiss of the lock system did nothing to abate the insecurity she felt being there. Her mind was trying to figure out the best place to start looking for information for the Alliance, while the paradigm she had regarding the monster that was her mother was unraveling and putting itself together again. It made for quite the headache. A headache which the air quality in the room was not aiding.

Where dirt had failed, a sense of liminality had permeated the room. It was as though the silence, broken only by the hum of the electronics, had spoken a place where time couldn’t exist into existence. Or, it was an area where the seconds that passed lived the same life as the previous. It was as though the sparse pieces of furniture and the vaulted ceiling were asking her a question. A question she wasn’t sure how to answer, but a question she had been asked before. She became hyper-aware of her every thought and breath. The green light was more demanding of an answer; it was directing the other objects in their objections with the shadows it cast on the floor. She was a tourist in her own skin. A spectator to her every move, like she was in a pantomime, and she was still the only audience and cast member. It was as unnerving as it was comforting, and the longer she stared the louder the chorus of questions became.

_I exist, but at what cost?_

“Where do I start?” she said to herself.

She settled on the remote to the projector, which was resting on the caf table in front of the footboard. She discovered the HoloNet was tuned in to coverage of the latest Outer Rim pod race. The crowd cheered as a purple pod racer crashed into a sandstone fin. “Figures.” Luke loved those, too.

The next thing to intrigue her was the information that popped up on the screen towards the bottom of the remote. Hooked up to the HoloNet, it showed the option of placing bets on the current race. The racket had yet to close. A quick look through the history showed Vader’s innate ability to predict the winner of each race. The cash payouts were breathtaking, too. In total, he- she threw what Leia estimated had been the gross domestic product of Alderaan into these Outer Rim pod racers.

Setting the remote down, Leia advanced to the end tables. Neither their cabinets or their drawers revealed anything other than random papers and odds-and-ends. It appeared that their contents had been stored there out of convenience for keeping clean appearances, unlike the parts of the room the housekeeper touched. No journal.

 _Look in the closet,_ her intuition said. The closet was tucked behind the carpet canyon. Had the pod been there, no one would have noticed it.

Inside, Leia discovered a lone, brown box sitting on the middle shelf. The closet was otherwise empty. Despite the heavy aura the box emitted, Leia was surprised at how light it felt in her hands. Wiping the dust off the lid, she opened it, the meager contents exacerbating the aura. A set of gray beads that were turning rose gold from time. A bundle of dried wildflowers. Two matching pairs of baby shoes. A discarded tin of Stewjonian tea. An astromech series spark plug. Imperial documents naming Palpatine her mother’s conservator, marking the bets in direct violation of the law. A crinkled, yellowing photograph of Anakin Skywalker on what looked like Naboo. Vader would have meditated knowing these things were hidden behind her.

**_“Leia… Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?”_ **

She remembered the sensation of someone looking down at her through a fogged window. Perhaps that wasn’t what happened, but that’s the sensation that was vivid. The woman had the goofiest grin.

**_“Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.”_ **

**_“What do you remember?”_ **

There was only so much she could have done as a child and young woman to relate to Breha. Breha taught her a great many things about being a female in the galaxy. How to carry herself. How to speak. How to deal with hecklers. How to deal with those who doubted her capabilities. How to deal with those that violated her boundaries. How to deal with the men in her life who did all the above. How to deal with her fellow women that did all the above.

She had an inkling as a young child that she was adopted. That inkling grew into her reality when she noticed how different she was compared to the other Organas. Things bothered her that were no big deal to Breha and Bail. Once, Bail had reprimanded Threepio for some inconsequential infraction on his part. It turns out he spilled a glass of her favorite milk on an antique rug. While she agreed that the droid had his quirks, the treatment he was receiving from her father felt so unfair. The ensuing argument between them lasted for two hours, with Leia’s face turning red in anger and her father’s mouth pressed in a thin line. Only now did she know why he had been so repulsed by her fury.

The woman who was supposed to teach her how to be a woman wasn’t present. She knew now who that woman was.

**_“Just… images, really. Feelings.”_ **

**_“Tell me.”_ **

How was she supposed to describe sensorial memories from when she was an infant? The only similar feeling she had encountered since occurred on the fringes of her mind while she was afraid for Alderaan’s safety. Standing in front of Tarkin, the presence of Vader behind her had been an odd source of comfort. She chalked it up to the rhythmic breathing acting as an anxiety stim.

**_“She was very beautiful. Kind, but… sad. Why are you asking me all this?”_ **

Kind and beautiful. She called the creature that made her life a living hell kind and beautiful. ‘Sad’ was the only adjective she had gotten correct in describing the woman whose room she was rummaging through. The body they created looked more endearing compared to what the putrid woman had been when she was young. The woman she had learned about from the Clone Wars had been killed shortly after she was born.

She closed the lid on the box. This would make a decent start. Setting it on the caf table next to the discarded remote, she went into the en-suite refresher, which was larger than the one they built for the holding cell.

It resembled a minimalist refresher, except it showed obvious signs of the medical condition of its owner. A turn of the knob revealed murky water in the pipes connected to the shower. The jets attached to the tub had been tinkered with, but if the shower was anything to go by, they weren’t used for their intended purposes, either. The area with the most activity was the set of sinks in front of the mirror. Even then, it would take an investigation of the cabinets to find anything.

Some of her hair had fallen out of her bun. She patted them into place before going further.

The vials were as numerous as they were colorful. She imagined they were kept here, in specialized storing containers, should their prescribed owner need them while they were unable to spare a trip to a medical center. Some were murky while others resembled water, some bubbled while others remained stagnant in their glass, and some were luminescent while others seemed dead in comparison. To have so much in the hands of a civilian with little to no medical training seemed irrational. To have so much under a sink seemed irrational. Then again, the labels did detail who had supplied the vials for Vader, and things began to make sense.

“He’d want her inebriated,” she spoke aloud.

Leia picked up each vial and removed their labels. She could conduct research on her own time. These and the box would have to do.

\---

**Five Days After the Battle on the Forest Moon of Endor**

\---

“Patient 501 is currently in stable condition,” the Togruta began. “How long she can remain like that is a mystery. All known trackers have been disabled. The replacement organs are being kept functional through the power base in the back of the suit. If she remains as she is, her health considered, she’ll be permanently disabled.” She crossed her arms. “That is, unless you both can come up with a way to improve her life.”

At the opposing end of the table sat Leia Organa, who was observing her with a blank gaze. A tea tray rested in front of her. She was spinning in her chair; she would turn the chair in one direction before catching herself with her foot and pushing herself in the opposite. Ahsoka had to force herself to keep from grinning at the habit her master demonstrated often during meetings.

“Yes,” Leia answered. “Luke appears to be taking care of that. He’s on his way to Naboo now. Something about a holocron.”

“Good. I will keep the patient in a stable condition as I await further orders.”

The room was silent save for Leia quitting her spinning to dump some sugar into her tea and stirring it into the brew. Her spoon scraped the glass with each stir.

“Do you think all this is right?” Leia asked.

“General, I don’t know what you mean by that.”

She sighed. “What I mean, Ahsoka, is do you think what we’re doing is the right thing? By trying to save the tyrant’s life?”

“General, I am under an obligation as a Healer to save the life of Patient 501. You created that obligation for me when you assigned me to this task. I don’t spare time to question the philosophical legitimacy of what I’m doing when it pertains to my oath.”

Leia nodded. “And I assigned you to it because I knew you were the best hope Luke had. He wants his mother. But I’m asking you not as your superior but as someone you know. Is this the right choice?”

“I have no opinion on this outside of my opinion as a Healer.”

The Skywalker daughter leaned back in her chair, her spine straight and her right hand gripping the handle on her teacup. “Don’t lie to me. I respect your opinion, Ahsoka. Am I wasting my time here, or not? Are we wasting our time? Because I don’t see the use.”

Ahsoka pushed her hands into the table and stood. “General, I have a patient to attend to. If you’ve called me in here to interrogate me, I’m sorry, but I must take my leave. Speaking to me as a friend or not.”

Leia pulled the cup against her chest, her other hand cusping the round edge. “Can you please just answer my question? Please, Ahsoka?”

The tone of voice she was using alarmed Ahsoka. It was unlike her to show such a weak amount of spirit. “I know you’re confused. As am I. But if I’m honest with myself, I want to see my master back. Even if I processed my grief long ago.”

Leia nodded and took a sip. “Understandable. You can leave.”

“I think you need to do some serious self-reflection.” Ahsoka stopped her in her journey away from Leia. “If it was just for your brother, you would have talked him out of this. If it was just for the Alliance, you wouldn’t be going through all this trouble to get the woman a new body.” The Togruta nodded out of deference and sauntered down the hallway, the sound of her heels connecting with the floor keeping almost perfect time to the emergence of conflicting thoughts in the former princess’s head.

\---

\---

Anakin wasn’t in the most stable condition when she returned to the medical bay, but her vitals were just stable enough. The IV bag containing her pain meds was running low, and Ahsoka placed an order for another one on the keypad in the back of the hospital room. Now was the best time for what she had wanted to do ever since she discovered the identity of her patient.

Ahsoka prepared to channel her thoughts through the remnants of their Force link. Forged in the aftermath of the rescue mission of Jabba the Hutt’s son, and fractured by herself as she refused her Padawan beads in the aftermath of her exoneration on the Jedi Temple’s steps, it pulsed and shivered every time she entered Anakin’s vicinity. ‘This connects you to me,’ Master Skywalker told her in the meditation room where they created it. ‘This bond is sacred, and it will always be sacred even after you leave my tutelage. Whenever you need help, or whenever you’re afraid, you can reach out to me for guidance.’ She prayed her thoughts could walk across the broken chasm and reach her master, wherever she might be in the burned shell.

She placed her hands, covered by medical-grade gloves, on the tightened skin covering her master’s shoulders and closed her eyes.

_Can you hear me, Master?_

It was a moment before she got a reply.

_Yes._

She was surprised at the voice Anakin had greeted her with. It possessed the same Tatooine-oriented drawl mixed with Coruscanti Basic her master had used in the Clone Wars, but it resided deeper in her throat and stomach. The years had given it a crackled overtone.

_It’s good to talk with you, Skygirl._

Another pause. _I could say the same._

 _Your son has gone to retrieve the holocron. There’s something I wanted to say to you. If you want to leave, you can,_ Ahsoka sent. _Luke wouldn’t want you here if you couldn’t handle it._

 _I can handle it,_ Anakin said. _I’ve dealt with worse._

 _I know._ _What do you see in there, Skygirl?_

_Come to me and find out._

Ahsoka opened her eyes briefly to be sure no one was observing them from the hallway before forcing her consciousness into the link.

_The darkness of the world beneath her eyelids became electrified, winding and unwinding itself at the same time, a spectacle of color and geometric shapes. Ahsoka briefly experienced ego death within the tessellation. The spectacle melted away, and through the growing transparency of the visuals, Ahsoka could make out a dilapidated bridge like the one where she and Skygirl had first met on Christophsis. Where the abandoned skyscrapers resided now only contained more of the revolving flashes. The bridge, made of hexagonal pieces of stone, was fractured in places, and Ahsoka could only walk across it for a certain distance before being stopped from reaching Anakin by a chasm. Across the chasm she stood watching Ahsoka, a bright presence nearly enveloping her form. It seemed to be in a constant conversation with Anakin, wavering as if gesturing. The amount of energy radiating from it was enough to make Ahsoka consider leaving the mind form of the link. Anakin herself looked very similar to the Anakin she had seen in the Clone Wars._

The light’s been following me ever since I saved my son, _Anakin explained._ It keeps absorbing parts of me, for better or for worse. I’ve forgotten numerous conversations just because this thing’s taken it an attempt to get me to cross over. _She held up her hands._ These have already started to fade away.

So, you’re still near death? _Ahsoka asked._ Is there anything that can be done in here to get that light off you?

Nothing I know of. It’s in Luke’s hands now. _Anakin looked up at the geometric kaleidoscope around them._ I’m waiting on him. He’s giving me a second chance, and I’ll take it to make him happy.

 _It was here that Ahsoka noticed a tall, shadowy figure standing just beyond the scope of the light. The mere sight of their vacuous eyes caused anxiety to ripple through Ahsoka, even in the peaceful ruins of the Force link._ One question. The chest console. That doesn’t send any info anywhere, does it? We removed all the correct trackers?

I studied that suit for two decades. _Anakin refused to acknowledge the figure behind her._ Those three trackers were it. Has the SurRecon center been destroyed?

In the riots on Coruscant? Yes.

 _Anakin nodded, smirking._ Good. We should be home-free.

_Ahsoka shut her mind form’s eyes, attempting to leave the link. The light was indeed too powerful, and she feared she might become enraptured by it if she stayed longer._

Oh, Ahsoka.

_She opened her eyes. Anakin’s white robes billowed in the force from Ahsoka’s previous concentration and its impact on the link._

I’m sorry you had to see me that way.

\---

**The Present, that Night**

\---

“Hot…”

“Hot…”

“Hot!”

Ahsoka stopped in front of Anakin’s cell, enthralled by the pain that rippled from the door in waves. Her nightly meditation walk was a requisite for all four of them to live in Fortress Vader safely, since the din the Dark Side had cast over the building was conducive to ancient Sith spirit apparitions, or so she read in a Jedi text once. She despised the part of her walk in which she went past where Anakin was being kept. The Force swirled in a vortex of intangible emotion around the body.

Now, the Force vibrated with clear, undefined, unregulated pain. She knew the standard procedure for dealing with patients in the middle of nightmares, particularly those caused by incidents of traumatic stress. She remembered her obligations as a member of the Rebel Alliance. She also remembered the helmet. Oh, the helmet.

She found Anakin rolling in circles on her bed.

“Off… Off… Off!”

Ahsoka situated herself into a triangle stance, her hands extended in Anakin’s direction. She pushed away the memory from the mask and summoned the memory of their meeting on Christophsis, the skyscrapers still a deep shade of blue in her mind. Anakin’s irises matched their hue. She had been elated to see her master after years of being a studious Youngling. It was the biggest accomplishment of her life at the time, becoming a Padawan, and the Force had guided her to the Chosen One. Anakin’s initial reaction to her didn’t dampen that feeling of excitement.

Drawing on her nostalgic elation, she extended soothing energy through her palms and into Anakin’s head. The thrashing ceased, as did her whimpers from the pain of the vision assailing her. The Force vibrated with a sense of neutrality.

Anakin awoke. Her eyes stared deadpan at the ceiling, still taking in the scene of the dream, unable to differentiate the change of setting. She blinked the scene away, realizing the fantasy of it all, and turned to the woman standing near the door.

“Healer Yantha.” Anakin drew her mouth into a smile, still gulping for air. Her hand found its way onto her collarbone. Her fingers rubbed along its edge for a moment before a disgruntled Anakin withdrew them. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

“You didn’t disturb me,” she replied. “Can I get you anything?”

“Yes. You can tell me how the hell you ended up completing your medical certification.” Anakin laughed, wiping away some of the night terror sweat from her brow and combing her plastered baby hairs back.

Ahsoka released some tension in her spine she was unconscious of. “I thought you hadn’t recognized me.” She didn’t remember their Force link dialogue, but of course she didn’t.

“I didn’t, at first.” She made to sit up in bed. “I just thought you were a random Togruta who happened to have similar facial markings to Ahsoka. Then I noticed your Force signature. I couldn’t believe you were a part of this process. I wanted to speak with you as soon as I could.” Anakin looked over her Jedi armor, which glistened green thanks to the light from the control panel above her bed. “Old armor, huh?”

Ahsoka bit her bottom lip and looked away, trying to suppress the grin that wanted to sketch itself across her face. A whirlwind of relief and longing was creating havoc in her mind, inhibiting the logic that she really shouldn’t be talking to Anakin for longer than necessary. She was only here to be sure the patient survived the transition between bodies, and she had insured that there was a body for the soul to transfer to in the first place. It seemed a million souls were asking her to turn around while her own beckoned her forward. “I thought I should dress like the Jedi I was trained to be. Not the one I was almost forced to be.”

Anakin smirked. “You were trained well. I’ll give you that.” The smirk fell. “I guess this is the part where I try to apologize. I’m sorry I almost killed you on Malachor. I know a verbal apology really doesn’t cut it.”

“Master, I- “She let her emotions guide her, and Ahsoka took a seat on the bed in front of Anakin’s legs. Her conscious screamed at her- chastised her for showing such attachment. “I wish you had reached out to me sooner.”

“I couldn’t have.” She adjusted the air conditioning dials on the room’s console. “Not without putting you at significant risk. You would have come back to the Order sooner, and I doubt you would have survived the Purge if you had been on Coruscant when it began.”

“I don’t think- “

“Let me finish, Ahsoka.” Her legs, which were stretched out beneath the sheets, were drawn in closer to give Ahsoka room. “I knew you weren’t dead. You may have fooled the Stormtroopers, but you failed to fool me.”

“It was a bit of a gamble on my behalf,” Ahsoka said solemnly. “I couldn’t keep them on me, even if I hadn’t tried to divert you. Too painful. I didn’t know it was you that had turned, then. I heard your voice, but I couldn't be sure.”

Anakin let a puff of air out of her nostrils. “Did you know?”

“When the balance shifted? Yes.” The Togruta nodded. “But there was a lot I didn’t sense. The scar. You said something in the hospital about a scar. That was from Luke and Leia’s birth, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Anakin stared at the wrinkles in the sheets from her previous thrashing. “They had been removed a few days before I met you again on Mandalore. My fault, of course. I’m lucky I only had diplomatic missions before they were removed. I confided my worries in Palpatine, and he got me out of the Outer Rim sieges. Padmé kept the cribs in a back room in his apartment.”

The Togruta’s jaw dropped, and she drew in a painful breath. “Why didn’t you tell me? You must have still been in pain.”

“No. I was drugged during that and when I saved Palpatine over Coruscant.” She giggled, and two tears fell from each eye. “Always was a charity case, wasn’t I? And how could I tell you? What good would that have done on Mandalore?”

Ahsoka drew into herself, looking down at her former master’s legs. Her new, human legs. “You’re right.” She looked back up. “Let me ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you have left the Emperor if I had more time to talk with you on Malachor?” Ahsoka looked a lot like her Padawan self, sitting there in front of her. The menace of the years had given her a longer face, along with longer montrals, but the Snips of the past had only adapted to the wise patina of time rather than be consumed by it.

“You assume that I would have given you the time to speak if the Sith temple hadn’t forced us to end our battle early,” Anakin answered flatly. “I would have killed you before you had the chance to.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she nodded, admitting to herself the weight of what she had pushed away for so long. “I would have killed you. I spent so long without you, and I would have killed you. If you had gotten another word in, you would have given me pause. Nothing more.”

“I don’t believe that.” Ahsoka shook her head. “That… being wasn’t you.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” she said. “Wasn’t that me? I think it’s a bit childish of you to stick with that narrative, Ahsoka. I thought you would be less naïve than that.”

“I knew it was you, but what I meant was, it wasn’t the real you.” Ahsoka enunciated her words to help in driving her point home to her master. The Clone Wars had proven her right. “Kenobi appeared to me after his death. He agreed with me.”

“Again, that’s wrong.” Anakin smiled, her fake teeth glistening like the beads of sweat still resting on her forehead. The menace of the years had taken the newly knighted body of her master and made her seem ancient. Ahsoka could only have prayed the demented bags under her eyes were a product of some botched skin graft on her part. “This is quite disappointing, Ahsoka.”

“I’ve never been told what exactly happened on Mustafar,” Ahsoka said. She had never been told what had happened around three minutes from the building they were housed in. She had been curious ever since she began carving into the suit.

“I was my usual reckless self.” Anakin fiddled with a loose thread in the sheet. “There isn’t much else to say.”

The memory of what she had seen when she held the helmet resurfaced once again. “Is it true they put you in there without anesthesia?” Her voice was soft from the gravity of the question.

“Yes.” Anakin left the thread alone and observed her former Padawan. “Sidious decided on that.” She leaned forward. “You saw?”

“When I removed your helmet, it gave me a vision.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

Silence.

“Did you feel any of it?”

Ahsoka shook her head. “No. I only saw some of what happened.”

Anakin reclined back against the headboard. “Thank Force.”

“I’ll tell you what I did feel.” Ahsoka brought both of her legs up onto the bed in a cross-legged position. “I knew when you killed Sidious. I felt an explosion of light in the Force unlike anything I’ve ever sensed before. Not even when we forged our bond.”

“I wish I could have felt it. I was a bit preoccupied.”

Anakin reached back up and turned the air conditioning knob on the console back to its original position. “I don’t know if I fulfilled the prophecy. I don’t even know why this operation has been allowed.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I felt, Anakin. You did. You really did.” Her eyes watered. “You have no idea the amount of relief that washed over me, knowing you were finally back.”

That statement didn’t elicit a response.

“So, what are you now?” Ahsoka asked. “Jedi, or Sith?”

Anakin looked her in the eyes. “Neither. I’m a widow and a mother of two people. That’s all I want to be. What are you, Ahsoka?”

The Togruta laughed. Her former master’s answer warmed her chest in a similar way to the balancing of the Force. “I’m a Healer who knows how to use the Force. Nothing more.”

Anakin’s gaze was attracted to the tan feather attached to her left ear. “I see the Daughter still watches over you.”

Her fingers found their way to the feather. “Yep. I see you’ve fulfilled what the Son laid out for you.”

She bit her lip. “And the Father. Curious. How things have come full-circle like this.”

\---

**19 BBY, Coruscant**

\---

“Just a few more moments, Mrs. Amidala-Skywalker.”

Her limbs shook in the restraints, her breath doing likewise beneath the oxygen mask, and the restraints rattled against the table. She clenched her eyes from the additional pressure she felt on her abdomen. Padmé put his hands on her shoulders as a sign of support but also to help keep her still. The sensation of having a droid bent over her open stomach like she was a broken star fighter was unpleasant, even if the drugs inhibited her from feeling any pain.

With the mask fogging with each breath, Anakin turned her head and looked up at her husband.

“Are you ready, Ani?”

“Not in the slightest.”

A burst of pressure.

The snip of a pair of scissors.

The whir of a suction machine.

And then-

“It’s a boy!” Padmé exclaimed. He took their son from the medical droid and held him up close to Anakin’s face so she could see him. “He looks just like you.”

“He does,” Anakin said in almost a whisper, looking at the boy’s tuft of dirty blonde hair. Tears fell from the sides of her eyes and fell onto her pillow. “I want you to name him.”

“How about Luke?” Padmé suggested. “One of my old mentors in the court was named Luke.”

Luke flailed his limbs and wailed at the harshness of his surroundings. The new mother couldn’t help but laugh. “Then it’s settled.”

Another ripple of pressure. Anakin winced and let out a groan as the second child was removed.

The snip returned.

Padmé set Luke down in the natal bed a medical droid rolled up to him. The droid wheeled Luke over to where he could be tested for neonatal diseases and receive his mandatory inoculations. The second child emerged from above the tarp in a similar screaming fit. A father’s child, by the looks of it.

“It’s a girl.” Padmé showed Anakin the second child. “Oh, Ani. I know how you wanted a girl.”

“And I know how much you wanted a boy,” she replied. “Looks like we both got what we wished for.”

“You can name her, Ani.”

She laid silent, thinking. “Leia. Nothing important about it. I just like that name.”

Padmé laughed and placed Leia in her natal bed. The couple looked on as their children were poked and examined, and Anakin, overcome with her new maternal instincts, sent comforting waves of energy through the Force to her children to make the process easier. Their crying ceased.

“I’ve never been this happy before in my life,” she said. “Save for when we were married.”

Her husband laid a gloved hand on her shoulder. “You’ll have happier memories after this, too. You’ll watch your children grow old, Ani. You’ll do it right next to me.”

“I hope so, Padmé. I hope so. Even if this moment can’t last.”

…

She made it back to the Jedi Temple before the pressure she was putting on the incision began to impede her. The reclined seated position of her star fighter was enough to make the ride back to the Temple bearable but walking up the steps from the hanger bay was a nightmare. The incision throbbed with every connection her feet made with the ground. If it hadn’t been for the staples and the makeshift bandage girdle, Anakin felt her insides might spill out over the Temple steps. Two days away were long enough, and she was fortunate she remembered to request leave before the twins were born.

Anakin’s sweat drenched the folds of her Jedi robe. It was a straightforward passage from the tunnel from the hanger bay to the apartments. That is, until she was stopped.

“Skywalker.”

“Master Plo.” She bowed as low as her screaming abdomen would allow. “How can I help you?”

“You look unwell, young Skywalker, despite having been on leave,” Plo Koon said, his voice characteristically muffled by his mask. “Do you need to see the Healers?”

 _Yes._ “No,” she said, smiling for effect. “I’m just a bit tired. I should really get back to my living quarters.” She gestured in the direction of her rooms.

“Hm.”

Anakin channeled the Force down her spine and into the incision. She was never much of a healer, but the channeled energy did remove some of the sting and allowed her to stand straighter.

Whether it was enough to convince him, she didn’t know. “I see,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it. You need to get your rest in these times.”

“Yes, Master.” She bowed again and started her painful walk past Plo Koon.

“Oh, Skywalker.”

_What now._

“Yes, Master?”

He watched her for a few moments before speaking, gauging whether now would be a good time to spring what he wanted to say on her. She noticed Council Members usually did that when they had pertinent information to dispense. Considering the state of the clone conflict, that was becoming every conversation. “I miss little ‘Soka as much as you do.” His voice sounded so foreign to her, like he was possessed by a different spirit who was articulating all their thoughts with his vocal cords. She had never heard him sound so defeated. Plo Koon stood with his hands in the pockets of his robe. “I’ve wanted to tell you how courageous it was for you to stand up for her against the Jedi Council, even if such an action demonstrated an unhealthy attachment towards her.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“I’ve an assignment on Cato Neimoidia soon,” he continued. “I’m occupied with preparing for it. But perhaps, when it’s over, you and I could have a talk about the incident.” He dipped his head, his gaze finding its way onto her abdomen. “If you find you’re feeling better.”

Her hands clasped over to the deflated lump that was hidden beneath her Jedi robes. She couldn’t tell if he was disgusted with her beneath his mind shields, but she assumed that was the truth. The Jedi Council’s members did not have a reputation for being merciful with even the most minor of infractions, let alone the grave miracle she had performed. Plo Koon may have been one of the nicer ones, but that didn’t spare him from the cycle of corruption she experienced from and while being on the Council. The best thing she had ever done was worthy of her expulsion.

The grave, foolish miracle. Even after she was excommunicated, there remained the possibility the Council would come for the twins, begging her to let them indoctrinate and stifle them as they had done to her. She wondered if they’d give her the same speech about the honor of being a Jedi as they gave to other parents of Force-sensitive children.

“Get some rest, Anakin. Anywhere.” He turned on his heels and, full of poise becoming of a Jedi Council Member, sauntered in the direction of the lift that would take him to the Council’s chamber.

She stood reflecting on Master Plo before the emergence of two giggling Padawans behind her forced her into motion. She would have one of the droids she had built in her room to get her some ice and set up a commlink with Padmé. The last she checked the twins were asleep.

\---

\---

The cribs were empty. The dust and ash that settled on the furniture throughout had not spared them, either. The treacherous Jedi had taken them- her children, two beings that were half of her- while she was caught unaware. They had taken them while she was in so much pain, the only thing she could focus on was keeping herself alive. Any signature the twins emitted into the Force was lost to her.

“Lord Vader,” a lone Stormtrooper called, interrupting her melancholic thought cycle.

“Get _out,_ ” she hissed into her vocoder, her real voice peaking around the deeper, synthesized voice people had come to associate her with. Any further action taken against the trooper would have proven moot. It was best for her to come off as unmoved as possible by the scene in front of her. A dead trooper would cause as many rumors as one with suspicions and a desire for capital gain. She wasn’t in the mood for killing, anyway.

“Yes, my Lord.”

Empty. She had emerged from the initial ramifications of the Purge and an eight-hour surgery with only an intention of holding her children again. Never mind how dirty, both physically and spiritually, she was, and never mind her fears of how much of her stain would transfer to them over time. She wanted to top a selfish day reminding herself of what she was doing this for. She was greeted with indentations in the mattresses of where her children used to rest.

She should have known. She should have known better. He brought them with him, and she didn’t even register their presence.

It was here, looking up from the cribs to the mirror Padmé had installed over them, that Vader got the first good look at her new identity.

There was nothing effeminate about her appearance. The exaggerated skull features of the mask and facial grill saw to that. Her slender neck had been swallowed by the wings on the helmet. Her hips were hidden beneath the girdle, and her breasts had been removed to make room for the chest computer. The vocoder produced a manly, husky voice, although it was possible to hear her real voice through the machine when she was upset. Hidden under the leather her permanent IV feeding port rubbed against the wound from her hysterectomy. The uterus too had to be removed to make room for her augmented hip joints. Combined with the weight of the prosthetics, the pain made her hunch. Hidden behind the opaque, red orbs, barely visible, were wide, yellow eyes. It was the same face she saw on Mortis.

 _Foolish woman,_ she chided. _Your children would scream in bloody terror as you approached them. What comfort could an infant find nestled next to the cursed suit?_ The sound of her regulated breathing was enough to unnerve her, let alone those unfortunate enough to cross paths with the newly minted cyborg.

There was only one possibility.

Her balled fist connected with the mirror, shattering it into uncountable shards that scattered across the twins’ beds. A wave pain coursed through the prosthetic to her nerves, but she couldn’t register it. Her babies were gone. Gone. Along with Padmé. Along with their plans for growing old. Promises made early in the morning hours when even Coruscant seemed still. Vows made in front of Padmé’s parents. Wasted.

She wasn’t lost. The only thing that was lost was the future she had worked so hard for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't take this fic as anti-trans or anti-choice. That was not my intention. If anything, you could see it as pro-trans and pro-choice because Anakin has been denied her gender identity and her children. For reasons we all know, but still.
> 
> Also, we're going to be getting more of badass Vader in the coming chapters. Also, a certain someone's son is going to be featured, too.
> 
> By the way, I haven't seen S7 or read "Ahsoka." Everything I know I know from YouTube. For those of you that think Ahsoka is being too nice too quickly, remember, she's currently blinded by nostalgia. Anakin commented on this herself. Explosiveness is coming, too. 
> 
> Everything is stored under the sink because that's where we store our necessities in my house. I'm writing what I know.
> 
> Someone asked how Vader couldn't have connected the dots to Leia prior to now. Don't worry. I've thought of that. Alderaan's destruction and the Bespin confrontation are coming. I have my reasons.


	4. Revelations (Breaking the Hardships)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After some deliberation stemming from a user comment, I decided to move the Vader/Leia confrontation up a chapter. This was a creative decision that I actually think makes my story better, so thank you. 
> 
> I may not post another chapter on Tuesday next week, as one of my favorite DS games has been ported to the App Store. I am going to be preoccupied with playing that and reliving my childhood. Plus, I have another AU fic in the works. 
> 
> Content Warnings: The Mustafar battle's ending is depicted in this chapter. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who keeps coming back. The stats are pretty consistent, so I'll take it as a sign that you all are enjoying my being on my bullshit. Remember- this isn't beta'd. So my apologies for anything I didn't catch. As usual.

\---

**The Present at Leia’s Command Center**

\---

It was the morning after her invasion of Vader’s privacy. Leia dumped out the labels she had taken from Vader’s refresher onto her desk, having just closed off a meeting with other Rebel leaders. Turning them so that their names faced upward, she realized how many she had taken from underneath the sink. There were twenty in all, each with varying amounts of script printed across them.

She switched away from the battle schematics for the impending Rebel raid on Kamino and instead pulled up the information database available to Imperial leaders she could access being in Vader’s former castle. She grabbed one label at random.

Vial #20050519. _Non-opioid pain reliever. Used for patients for whom pain killer dependency is a major concern or for whom dependency has previously been established._

“That makes sense,” she muttered aloud. She picked up another label.

Vial #20200504. _Used for patients for whom bacta was effective at regenerating skin cells. Used to prevent sudden skin death._

Vial #20161210. _Used for insomnia patients for whom melatonin supplements have not alleviated symptoms._

Vial #19830525. _Used to aid nutrient absorption in patients with artificial or cybernetic stomachs and intestines._

She searched for the medications in the remaining vials, some detailing similar purposes to those previous while others serving to mitigate the conflicts between them.

Coming across the last label, which she remembered covered a separate, black liquid that seemed to pulse when she grabbed its vial, she encountered a conundrum. No search results in her database matched the printed name.

Leia adjusted the search parameters and tried again. Nothing.

She tried an alternative database, even though this database, funded by the Alliance, wouldn’t possess as much information as the Empire’s. Still nothing.

Artoo passed by the window to the side of her command center, a breakfast tray resting on his attached harness. The droid had taken to his new responsibilities without much complaint, as was typical of him as opposed to the protocol droid he called his friend.

She knew where she could find the answer she wanted.

\---

**Four Days after the Battle on the Forest Moon of Endor**

\---

The escape pod port was his new favorite place to meditate, as it was far enough from his mother where he could think without being overwhelmed by the flickering status of her Force signature. Healer Yantha, a Togruta to whom Leia had assigned Anakin as a patient and had sped over to their ship above the moon of Endor, had studied his mother’s suit and given him a grave prediction after removing the shoddy circulatory implant. It would be impossible to keep his mother alive in the present suit as much as it would be to remove her from it. She could be kept alive through maintenance of life support systems outside of the suit, but to do so would render his mother bed-ridden for however long she managed to live. Palpatine’s lightning had done irreversible damage to a suit designed to be damaged by lightning.

He walked by the medical bay where she was being kept, just out of curiosity. A single piece of blue medical cloth covered the lower half of her body, but her torso, arms, and head were visible. He recoiled in horror when he saw the twin scars emerging from beneath the chest computer. Her oxygen tube coiled up from her mouth and into the machine like a snake emerging from and re-entering its burrow. Leia had ordered the mask be put back on for Healer Yantha, who had to remove it to deactivate one the trackers.

“I suppose I should admit you were right.”

Luke opened his eyes. “And I should say I was right from the correct point-of-view.”

Obi-Wan emerged from the entrance to the pod hanger, blue energy winding and unwinding itself around his image. “Still, I must encourage you to let go of your mother while you still have the opportunity to do so.”

“I wasn’t going to leave her to die.” Luke resumed his meditative posture. “And I’m not now.”

“You are aware of the potential consequences of keeping her alive, aren’t you? I didn’t take you for a foolish boy, Luke, even if I had my doubts about your confrontation with Vader and the Emperor.”

“You certainly didn’t express any of those doubts on Dagobah,” he bit back.

The Force ghost was unfazed by this. “What you are attempting to do borders on supernatural. It wasn’t your place to interfere with her death on the Death Star.”

“Oh, so healing her was the wrong choice?” Luke was through pondering over that. He viewed himself as a son aiding his mother. Nothing more. “I asked her to stay. She stayed. And now, I’m going to make it comfortable for her here.”

“You think your mother won’t be traumatized by the experience you’re going to put her through?” Obi-Wan asked. “You think your mother won’t live in constant mental agony now that she’s come to terms with her actions? Now that she must face it rather than using it to fuel her own ambitions? You think you can keep her existence a secret forever?”

“Wouldn’t it be the same if she were dead?” It was Luke’s turn to ask the pointed questions. “Wouldn’t she constantly be tormented with what she became? Would she really be given a chance at peace in the Force with only the death of the Emperor as an act of redemption? At least now, I’ve given her the chance to make further amends for her actions. She can help us against the remains of the Empire. She can help me rebuild the Order. She can get the chance to be the parent she wanted to be. And maybe, after all of that, she can at least come to terms with her torment.”

“I could have helped her with that.” Obi-Wan sounded disappointed.

Kenobi looked over his shoulder, enraptured by and listening to something behind him that Luke couldn’t see. He noticed the old man’s posture curve slightly as whatever was talking to him continued in the silent monologue. He stroked his beard a few times, reflecting on the voice that eluded Luke.

“Fine.” He turned back to Luke. “If you really want to save your mother, there is a method you can use, and if you search hard enough, you’ll know exactly how to find it out. But I wouldn’t recommend it. You’re walking into territory only the Sith would venture into.”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Luke began, “both the Sith and the Jedi have been destroyed. The woman you lost faith in finished the job a few days ago.”

“Remember what Yoda and I taught you.” Obi-Wan prepared to disappear, leaving only what he said and Luke’s mental cacophony behind. “You must always be prepared to resist the dark.”

Luke smiled. “I’ll take my chances. Been having some pretty good luck as of late.”

\---

**Naboo, the Same Day**

\---

The mausoleum was pitch-black save for the sunlight that coursed through the stained-glass window above the sarcophagus. The colors in the glass danced across it to the opposing wall in a menagerie of blues and greens from the regalia and landscape design. The window itself depicted what Luke realized was a male version of Leia in traditional, Nubian attire. The white face powder, combined with the red lips and cheeks, did little to detract from his overly masculine face. His cheeks and chin were not as chiseled as his mother’s, granted. They were quite plump, signifying a life spent in well-off circumstances, even if he had wielded that circumstance for positive effects.

There had been a brief excerpt about the late King and Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo in his history book in school. He had been so influential that even backwater Tatooine secondary schools discussed him. He had stood against the “corrupt Republic and the Trade Federation enabled by their oversight” and had “died tragically during the failed Jedi coup.” He read that passage over and over, fascinated with the fallen King for reasons he couldn’t place. He knew the Empire controlled what history they learned in school, but it seemed so odd to regard a Senator that was, for all intents and purposes, pro-Republic and pro-Jedi so highly in a state-written textbook for the Outer Rim. Everyone gleaned that.

Luke followed the gaze of the man in the window to an area on the opposite wall. Between his two eyes a cinderblock resided. Passing a hand over the sarcophagus as he walked past, extending a portion of his love in his father’s direction, he reached for the block, and, pressing it, it slid open and revealed itself to be a hidden chamber.

His palm stung from the energy emitted by the holocron. As an object, it didn’t look very imposing. It was no bigger than a helmet, and its jade green body seemed unbecoming of the dark secrets he was told it contained. Still, holding it made his skin feel pricked. He began to hear whispers of ghosts long neglected, aching for an opportunity to turn someone else to their dark ways. The noises they made were unintelligible, but they were directed at him, and they bounced around the walls of the mausoleum, corrupting the beauty of the menagerie.

Luke looked over his shoulder to be sure the whispers were just in his head before pushing the block back into place.

\---

**The Present- Somewhere on Mustafar**

\---

Ahsoka hated the showers she had to take while staying on Mustafar. Looking at her Jedi armor, she realized it too would have to be cleaned, as the volcanic, sulfuric ash had dusted into the interlocked pieces on her shoulders and knees. The once red armor now sported a burnt-orange parlor. It was almost as degraded as Malachor- this planet. It soiled everyone who dared to step foot on it. The heat made her every pore come alive, and yet the hollowness in her chest made her more sluggish than the environment.

If the helmet could reveal some truth, then perhaps the scene of the incident could reveal something as well.

The ashy, igneous rocks crunched beneath her feet as she walked off the platform at the mining complex and made her way towards the bank of the river. Morai circled overhead, the smoke from the nearby mining operation and the bubbling lava making it difficult for her to fly lower to the ground. The convor gave a soft “caw” every time Ahsoka walked in the right direction of the incident in question. Beholding the planet on the ground, it was easy to see how the majesty of the planet resided not with the immense heat, but in the sense of dread and trepidation it created in its inhabitants.

As Ahsoka approached the embankment, Morai let out a series of high-pitched caws combined with lower squawks. Distress.

“I know,” she said aloud in the convor’s direction. “I know. But I want to see what happened. Please, Daughter. Let me see what happened.”

Morai made a dipping motion and then disappeared above the smoke. The tessellation she had seen in the bond floated in the direction of the bank.

**_“It’s over Anakin! I have the high ground.”_ **

Amidst the fiery inferno, Ahsoka beheld two cylinders of blue emerge through the heat waves- one residing on the upper bank of the river, angled outward, and the other hovering above the lava. The disheveled figures of the people she had respected most emerged soon after. Despite her blank countenance and harsh stance, Anakin’s eyes burned with the fury of an animal on the scent of prey, confident that the chase was over, and dinner could be enjoyed. This was true despite her unfortunate position in comparison to Kenobi.

She found herself shaking her head at the vision, begging the past form of her former master not to do what she knew she would. The suit began to make more and more sense.

**_“You underestimate my power!”_ **

**_“Don’t try it!”_ **

“Don’t- don’t- “

Anakin jumped. A guttural scream escaped from Ahsoka’s throat as Obi-Wan’s lightsaber connected with Anakin’s remaining limbs. They fell in a haphazard fashion along the bank, farther from the edge than Anakin’s body had landed. Her lightsaber found itself near Obi-Wan’s feet. The hilt reflected the blue light from Obi-Wan’s blade rather than the red glow of the lava flowing around them.

At Anakin’s cry of “Help me!” after she hit the ground, Ahsoka nearly ran towards Anakin’s broken form, mistaking the vision for reality thanks to her sentiment.

‘She’s back at the fortress,’ Ahsoka said to herself. ‘That’s not her. She’s back at the fortress.’

Obi-Wan stayed where he was.

Anakin’s eyes metamorphized from cerulean to yellow. Ahsoka always liked the cerulean color of those eyes. They were a way for her to experience comfort outside of their Force bond, and their yellow perversion yielded nothing but despair in her mind.

**_“You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force- not leave it in darkness!”_ **

Anakin writhed against the ashy bank, but the more she tried to pull herself up, the closer she came to edge of the lava river. The Togruta wanted to beg her to stop moving. That moving would only hasten what was inevitable. That if she just stopped squirming, she wouldn’t hurt herself more.

**_“I HATE YOU!”_ **

It felt as though the Anakin in her vision was looking beyond Obi-Wan and was gazing instead on her. She knew that though Anakin had betrayed both Obi-Wan and herself to join Palpatine in his destruction of the Jedi and the Republic, a betrayal had happened to Anakin before she took a knee to the Emperor. A betrayal had occurred on her behalf when she walked down those Temple steps, making her first decision for herself, even if she was interested in coming back a year later. The damage was incurred, and there was nothing that could have been done to remedy that.

**_“You were my sister, Anakin. I loved you!”_ **

“And mine, too,” she whispered, hot tears coursing through the dirt on her cheeks, dissolving into her sweat before falling onto her armor. “I shouldn’t have left.”

Bile rose in Ahsoka’s throat as Anakin’s body erupted into flames. The stench of burnt flesh, acrid yet layered to the last, caused her to dissociate from the vision, and she could no longer hear the cries of the woman on fire. Anakin’s skin became as cavernous as the landscape around them, the flames carving their way through tissue, fat, and bone. Obi-Wan shuddered and, grabbing the discarded lightsaber, hurried away from the scene.

She remained and observed as the flames licked Anakin’s clothes and skin away, finally dying away when they could find nothing else to destroy. Her feet remained planted as the Emperor and a set of clones appeared around the broken body of her former master. Her feet remained planted as four Mustafarian mining medical transports landed around them. Anakin- _Vader_ was lost to her among the flashing green and blue lights. Her screams at being touched were lost among the sirens.

“Enough. I’ve seen enough.”

The tessellation returned, and the vision disappeared with it.

Ahsoka walked back up the bank with her hands balled into fists. Her tears carved different muddy tracks across her facial markings, too large to be overtaken by sweat and falling in a militaristic pattern. One, two. One, two. Morai cawed overhead, but Ahsoka didn’t regard the convor. The only thing she heard was the repeated screams of her former master as she received karmic retribution for what she had done in the Jedi Temple.

\---

**The Senate Building, 19 BBY**

\---

While she was happy to have rescued the Chancellor, the man she was beginning to respect more than her own Jedi Master, and while the pomp and circumstance in her honor was much appreciated, the recent battle over Coruscant was the furthest thing from her mind. As she had been dealing with buzz droids on her star fighter, Anakin was checking the planet below to be sure her children’s Force signatures remained unchanged despite the conflict above them. If they were anything like her, they would register the carnage despite their young ages.

Anakin jogged over to where Padmé had been hiding, hoping they could exchange stories about what all had happened while they were apart.

“Padmé!”

“Anakin!” Padmé planted a kiss on her cheek. “There were reports that you were dead. I didn’t know what to do.”

“How are the twins?” she asked.

“They’re fine. Sabé is taking care of them while I’m here. I keep a picture of you in their cribs so they can remember what you look like.” He chuckled.

Anakin didn’t find this revelation as amusing, and instead, her smile fell, and the adrenaline she felt as a result of saving the Chancellor seemed to dissipate out of her body. “I’m tired of all the deception. I shouldn’t have to be away from my children at a time like this to protect them. I don’t care that people know that we’re married.”

Padmé shook his head. “Don’t say things like that.” He looked down at her arms. “Are you alright? You’re trembling.”

“I’m sorry.” Anakin looked out over the Coruscanti skyline. The air traffic flowed in one continuous motion. A break in the slew of ships never emerged. “It’s just I can’t let this war keep going. Not with the twins around. I think it would be better if I just admitted the truth so I could leave the Order and be with them. Being away from the war because of them has made me realize how little I miss the battlefield.” Her back hunched, and she wanted nothing more than to fall into Padmé’s arms. The shame at her anger dissuaded her from doing so. “I did what the Council’s negotiator could never have done, thanks to the Chancellor giving me the opportunity, and the first chance they get they send back to the battlefield.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders. No matter what happened, she always felt like she could take refuge in them. They were so unlike the hands of the men she had seen on Tatooine, where their responsibilities and the weather made them calloused and leather-like. Even the hands of some Jedi Masters had grown tough from gripping their sabers, especially as a result of the war. Padmé seldom held a blaster, and it showed.

“You know, Ahsoka may be coming back,” she said. “I met up with her during the siege of Mandalore.”

His smile lit up his face. “That’s amazing! Will the Order accept her back?”

“I don’t know.” She looked back at her husband. “But that, combined with the idea of seeing the twins and the death of Dooku, makes this one of the happiest days of my life. I can have hope, can’t I?”

\---

**The Present, in Anakin’s Cell**

\---

Leia didn’t bother with knocking. Her brother may have been able to spare the former cyborg the pleasantry, but she was not her brother. She stepped into the cell, which was the most luxurious cell she supposed existed in the Outer Rim, and she found her biological mother sitting cross-legged on her bed, her eyes closed in thought. They opened at the sound of Leia’s footsteps, and Anakin tossed her head back and turned it towards Leia’s direction. The breakfast tray sat untouched at the edge of the mattress.

“I need answers from you,” Leia said flatly, her chest rising and falling. Her agitation was peeking around the leader’s composure she had carefully crafted over the years. Perhaps in the face of the skull-like mask she would have been more intimidated, which in turn would have allowed her to retain some fortitude along with her usual crass in her mother’s presence. A female version of Luke lacking the drive to bust herself out of the cell they created? Indeed, it was quite pathetic to her.

“The base locations you gave us were valid,” she continued. “Combined with the destruction of the second Death Star, the Rebellion is close to stomping out the remains of the Empire.”

“Of course, they were valid.” Anakin shifted her legs off the bed and planted her feet on the floor. “That much I knew. So, what’s the problem?”

Leia reached into her pocket and produced the label of the unclassified vial. Anakin squinted her eyes at it, but they resumed their normal place as soon as she realized what the label was from. The fact that Leia had found her medicinal stash did not faze her. The little Force training Leia had told her that her countenance outside matched the one inside.

“I need to know what this is.” Leia handed her the label, retracting her arm a little too soon. Anakin had to lean forward to catch the wayward piece of sticker paper.

“It’s Sith Alchemy.” Anakin turned it over a few times after she read the lettered side. “It’s not going to be in your system. The alchemy I used was over three thousand years old.”

She placed the label between her pointer and her middle finger and gave it back to Leia.

“What does it do?”

She crossed her arms and leaned forward on her knees, swaying. “General Organa- “

“I’m not in the mood for long-winded conversations,” Leia said. “I’m able to resist any charm you had with my brother.”

Anakin chuckled. “Oh. I have charm, now. Good to know.”

The Rebel general rolled her eyes. “Just answer my question. I have torture droids on hand. I’m not afraid of bringing things full-circle to get this information.”

She sighed and scratched the back of her neck, her gaze falling from Leia to an area in the floor just beyond where she was standing.

“It’s an emotional inhibitor,” Anakin said. “It binds itself to your neurons and makes it so you’re impervious to the effects of your own actions. The Sith originally developed it to aid in their warrior culture aims, or so I figured out. Imagine, if you will, the ability to mow through a battalion of soldiers without a stroke of remorse. Regardless of the amount of hate within a Sith, and regardless of the extent of which the dark has consumed them, there remains the necessity of assessing risk. There is always the risk of a return to more benevolent ways, and that must be offset through various means. Anything that magnifies hate.” She looked back at Leia. “Does that answer your question?”

“Yes.” She placed the label back into her pocket. “I’ll leave you to whatever you think you should do with all the time you’ve been given.”

“Do you always act on your anger like that?”

Leia turned around. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Anakin dug at the fingernails on her right hand. The clicking sounds they made being pulled away and falling back into place grated against her daughter’s eardrums. “I wouldn’t say I’m the type of person that enjoys repeating themselves. I’m not implying what you said is false. I know you would torture me. I just want to know if this is normal, and I say that considering what you’ve said and done in my presence before.”

Her jaw clenched. “Seldom. I would seldom address a prisoner in a harsh manner outside of interrogation procedures. Seldom during, too, since I’m bound by a moral code because of my authority. However, you aren’t a typical prisoner.”

“I hoped as much.” Anakin lowered her hands. “I was beginning to think you were too much like me for your own good. I told your brother that you might turn if he didn’t. I was only toying with him at the time, but I can see in your eyes you’d like revenge against me.” She opened her palms, her fingers extended in the direction of the door. “Would you like to go ahead and see what else you can get from me?”

“You disgust me,” Leia spat. “I am far above you in more ways than one. The two of us are not remotely comparable, and you know it.”

Anakin fiddled with a hangnail that was beginning to develop despite having her new hands for less than a rotation. “Go on. Let it out. It will only bring you more torment if you don’t deal with it. I am as disgusted with myself as you are.”

Leia sighed and shook her head. “No. Whatever game you’re playing, you aren’t going to win.”

“I’m not playing a game. I’m just talking to you. Unless you’d like to let this evolve into an interrogation?”

She bit her lip, her stomach caving from the sharp exhale from her diaphragm. She might as well ask, since she was being given the opportunity. “Did you even know I was your daughter? When you were torturing me? When you captured me in Cloud City? Did something fall together for you? Or were you just blind?”

“Yes, and no.” Anakin clicked her tongue. “Your signature seemed familiar. But I was too inebriated while being too focused on my own ends to see the truth. I rationalized that Leia was a common name. I knew from your biological father that the Organas had been trying for a daughter for years. Combined with the drugs and alchemical toxins, you appeared to me as just another Rebel. Any resemblance you had to your father was lost from the shading in my eye shields. Certainly, you’ve done something in the height of your ignorance about your real family?”

The kiss. Leia didn’t know if the woman was reading her mind, but she used every cognitive control technique she knew to keep her thoughts off the incident.

“What happened because of my stupidity is nothing compared to what you did to me.”

“Perhaps not in terms of action.” Anakin shook her head. “But in principle? One could argue it’s the same. Same principle, but with different ramifications stemming from our own mental blindness.”

The disconnect between the way she appeared, youthful and healthy despite her eyes, and the words that came from her mouth was not lost on Leia. As a result of her torment and the new body, she gave off the impression of being wise beyond her years, including beyond her real, unnoticeable age.

“Healer Yantha told me about how you saved Bail Organa in the Senate Hostage Crisis.” Leia noticed her voice was beginning to sound less agitated and more like her normal voice, though its gravitas was still there. “Is that true?”

Anakin nodded. “During the Clone Wars? Yes. I did. And deep down, I always supported his pacifist policies, too. Even if I really didn’t have much a stomach for Republican politics.”

She chortled. “He was on Alderaan when it was destroyed. Did you know that?”

Anakin nodded again. “I heard.”

“The Organa family did what you couldn’t do.” Leia felt her face grow hot. “They made me the person that could withstand all that you did. You could’ve done more to stop the Grand Moff.”

It was Anakin’s turn to give a sarcastic laugh. “You overestimate the influence I had on Tarkin. You said it yourself. He was holding my leash.”

“Yet you were still the highest ranking official in that room, aside from him. You could have- “

“I’m not arguing with you when you know nothing about the politics of the inner Imperial Circle and could never experience it firsthand,” Anakin interrupted. “Now, is there anything else you need from me?”

The label felt heavy in Leia’s pocket. The mention of the Grand Moff seemed to stir something in her. “No. That’s all.”

“You know, there could have been children on the Death Star when you and your Rebel army came to destroy it,” Anakin said. She pulled her legs back onto the bed. “A field trip had been scheduled with the Imperial Academy for the week following the attack. You’re quite fortunate you attacked when you did. Starkiller did well in teaching you all to be decisive.”

Leia’s shoulders hunched at the mention of his name. “You manipulated that boy.”

“And yet, if I hadn’t, would you be standing here?” Despite her minted comely appearance, Anakin had to potential to bite with her voice.

“I like to think that I would. I’ve had enough of your manipulation of events for one day.” She looked at the tray. “I’ll send my brother to deal with you from now on.”

\---

**_Days Before the Battle of Yavin_ **

\---

“Do not follow after me. I’ll handle the Rebel scum myself.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.”

The blast door closed behind her with a hiss, a hiss which overshadowed the continuous wheeze of the respirator. The Rebels stood confused at the sudden technical malfunction in the second, precautionary blast door. Their comrades beyond were looking out for themselves, running by their trapped fellows in arms, oblivious to their impending peril.

Her respirator may have blended in with the emergency sirens, but the noise of her heavy boots hitting the metal floor did not. The Rebels turned her way, blasters ready, their Force signatures dripping with apprehension as opposed to dread.

She ignited her lightsaber.

“Open fire!”

Foolish.

She deflected their shots with ease, the first two deflected shots going into the two Rebel foot soldiers standing closest to her. The remaining deflected shots hit the cables in the ceiling of the hallway. The resulting spark show resembled the celebrations she had witnessed for Empire Day on Coruscant.

“Help us!”

She saw through reddened lenses the glint of the flash drive containing the Death Star’s schematics. No doubt, too, that the schematics revealed the major design flaw in the thermal exhaust port near the main reactor, which she had discovered during its construction phase. The Rebel that possessed it was begging those beyond the jammed door to take it.

She raised one of the Rebels up to the ceiling and sliced through his abdomen. He fell in two behind her, missing her billowing cape during his landing.

If she had wanted to, she could have reached into the Force and taken those plans right from his hand. If she had wanted to, she could have used the Force to propel the entire collective of Rebel soldiers in front of her into that jammed door. If she had wanted to, she could have lifted the lot of them off the floor, the Force guided by her to crush their esophagi. One by one.

A Rebel attack on the Death Star was to be expected. It was what she and the Emperor had foreseen. A successful Rebel attack on the Death Star would be a slight against the Grand Moff- the very man who had pieced together her previous identity and could use it as social capital to keep her in check. A successful Rebel attack on the Death Stat would be an excuse to promote the expansion of her power due to the inadequacy of other Imperial staffers.

She reached forward with the Force and grabbed their blasters. They flew behind her and, connecting with the closed blast door, fell into a useless heap.

_Clank!_

The Rebels regarded her with horror. She felt their resolve shake yet firm in the Force as they processed what they knew was coming, which aided her concentration.

“Take it! Take it!”

Someone was merciful enough to answer his calls for help. The plans disappeared from her sight as she sliced through the remaining Rebel.

Soon, the Rebel ship detached from the hanger bay anchor, and she found herself looking out over the vacuum above as its engine revved its back turbines. The shockwave from the detachment did nothing to her firm posture. The Stormtroopers she had ordered to wait appeared behind her, curious as to her whereabouts now that the ship had escaped.

“To the Executor,” she barked, the vocoder masking her real voice entirely. “Keep an eye on that Rebel ship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all like angst? Because I sure do.
> 
> Also, I always wondered why Vader didn't do more to get the plans in that scary-ass hallway scene in Rogue One. Guess I came up with a decent enough explanation for myself.
> 
> Anyone who figures out the secret behind the vial numbers gets Brownie Points!


End file.
